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Science Fictions by John Crewdson, Little, Brown, $27.95, ISBN 0316134767

IN 1989, the Chicago Tribune published a harshly critical 55,000-word report on virologist Robert Gallo and his conduct of AIDS research, written by Pulitzer Prize journalist John Crewdson. In that rendition, Crewdson judiciously attributed Gallo’s claim of priority in AIDS research to “an accident or a theft”. Gallo escaped an official guilty verdict. In the eyes of the law, he had not cheated the Pasteur Institute of its deserved glory for discovering the AIDS virus.

Now, over a decade later, with the ardour of Captain Ahab and Inspector Javert,…